


if there's a reason i'm still alive when everyone who loves me has died (i'm willing to wait for it)

by wavephm



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:09:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22143874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavephm/pseuds/wavephm
Summary: she finds it hard to breathe under the weight on her shoulders. the ghosts from her past are crushing her lungs, cutting off her oxygen and leaving her mind in a swirling panic. she wants to dig her nails into her palms and scream until her voice box has burst, curl up into fetal position and let the tears stream down her cheeks. instead, she takes a deep breath and puts on a mask of nonchalance. after all, she must keep up appearances (regina is a lot of things, but weak is not one of them).orregina's life told in snippets, at the times when she lost those she loved most.kinda canon compliant but i didn't even mess with anything past s2 because that still hurts.
Relationships: Daniel Colter/Evil Queen | Regina Mills, Evil Queen | Regina Mills & Queen of Hearts | Cora, Evil Queen | Regina Mills & Regina's Father | Henry Mills Sr., Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Leopold
Kudos: 16





	if there's a reason i'm still alive when everyone who loves me has died (i'm willing to wait for it)

**Author's Note:**

> tw: death, implied/referenced non-con, implied/referenced child abuse, briefly described miscarriage

daniel dies, and regina cries (she’s sixteen at the time).

the sound that ripped out of her was ugly and disgusting and everything awful in the world, and she fell to her knees with the force of it as mommy looks on.

next to her, his lifeless body falls with a sickening thump, and regina drags his body to hers, cradles his head in her arms (not gently, gentle used to be his job, she realizes, regina doesn’t know how to be gentle). 

snot and tears are mingling on her neck and all she could think about was the sound his heart made as it crumbled to dust on the stable floor. mommy is still standing over her, and regina knows that this next beating is going to hurt but she also knows that she can’t hurt anymore than she already does.

later, she curls into a ball and lets her tears and her blood soak the lavender sheets until she’s clawing at her neck for breath. her thoughts are like a circle in her head, remembering his smile and laugh and his frown and the sound his skull made as it cracked on the stones of the stable floor and she’s shaking again.

her baby dies, and regina cries (she’s seventeen, eighteen, twenty at the time).

when she married the king, she hoped that she might be safe from her mother, from the fear and the pain. she doesn’t know why she bothered as her hopes are dashed against the bedframe on her wedding night. the king is not gentle, but regina forgot what gentle felt like anyways (he closes his eyes and calls out his dead wife’s name, and regina remembers that she is only a replacement).

she hears the whispers, knows that people talk. they call her the child bride, put in a gown too heavy for her to carry and meant to be a mother for a girl four years younger than her (others call her the child whore, those who look at the bruises on her arms and her thighs and her neck and choose to look away).

her belly swells for the first time eight months after the marriage, but she already knows it won’t keep. it happens in the bathtub, blood coating the inside of her legs. the pain is sharp and not at all fleeting, and she sits there for hours and hours and lets the tears drip down her throat until all she tastes in salt and iron.

she gives birth the third time, to a beautiful baby-blue girl (she never knew how tragic blue could be before). her husband grabs the infant before regina gets her, and she screams at him until her vocal cords rip as he burns the tiny body, falls unconscious with the pain of losing what could have been (her children are not mourned; rather, they are forgotten).

her father dies, and regina cries (she’s twenty-seven at the time).

the smoke billows from her cauldron, neon-green lightning crackling upwards in a tower of violet smog that coats the starry sky.

her mind feels blurred and empty, and she knows that there’s blood on the floor but she sits there anyways, nestles her father’s head in leaden arms as she apologizes over and over (she knows he doesn’t understand, and that’s the painful part, because he would die for her anyways).

a guard comes up to her, surely relaying some message or condolence, but she snaps his neck with a wave of her hand and the rest leave quickly thereafter. she wonders dully if snow white is worth this, worth killing those who love her (the only one who loves her), if she couldn’t just have kept her kingdom and her power and her magic and her father - but it’s too late now for silly thoughts like that.

the smoke curls around her feet in wisps, and she lets her father’s skull fracture on the marble tile as she walks into the haze. she awakens in a new bed, in a new house, in a new world, and her father is gone. 

her mother dies, and regina cries (she’s not sure what her age is, lost count a long while ago)

gold’s shop smells like magic, permeating every pore of wood and carpet in the place, every drop of black and white wax that drips from a still-warm candle onto snow white’s shoes. regina cries silently, the only sign of tears a slight tremble of her shoulders (she doesn’t remember when she learned to let the tears fall without a sound). 

her mind keeps repeating her mother’s last words, that moment of love on cora’s face as she reached out to regina and told her that she was enough. then she goes on to the choked sound that her mother made as her heart ate her soul, killing her from the inside out and giving her life to someone else.

vaguely, she hears snow white’s apologies, and for the first time in her life she can’t bring herself to care. she teleports herself and her mother to the vault and gently lays her mother on the floor, and tears are dripping down her neck and between her breasts, and she still hasn’t made a sound.

regina closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them, her magic has taken her out of the vault and left her sitting on the edge of the docks, feet hanging off the edge and skimming the water. it’s late and cold, so cold it feels like her tears are freezing on her face, but she strips off her jacket anyways.

her chest is very warm in comparison to the frozen air as she plunges her hand into her rib cage and brings out her heart, but the lack of the beating organ does nothing to stop the crushing feeling that fills her lungs, and she finally lets out a broken sob as she thrusts her heart back into her chest (you can't fix what has been shattered into a million pieces).

regina is alive (and only the ghosts cry for her).


End file.
